Cambridge, a bustling medieval town in England, is the scene for a meeting between a local lady and a foreign woman with a child. The new arrival is jeered by a crowd and the local, Lassair, has to help calm matters in BLOOD OF THE SOUTH. This stranger is wealthy, from her clothing, but has no companions on the quay. Lassair helps her find a room and returns to her master, Gurdyman the alchemist. Called a wizard by some, this man hands her a piece of lapis lazuli to enhance psychic ability and tells her to look into a round dark seeing stone which Lassair inherited from her Norse father. She sees an ominous vision. Lady Rossaria, the newcomer, needs an escort to locate her kinsfolk, and Lassair, as a healer, joins the little party.

Riding through the sodden fenland, the group comes upon the body of a woman, drowned and alone. Was this accidental? Who is the woman, and why has nobody missed her? Lassair's awakened second sight seems to tell her that the woman was killed, and her curiosity and sense of decency prompts her to investigate among her fenland relatives.

I enjoyed the realistic depiction of the fenland and its denizens. As soon as they see a healer calling, the isolated people suddenly remember a cough or ache and ask her to advise or give them herbal medicine. Houses and monasteries are made of wattle and daub, with little wealth anywhere. The people live on fish, wildfowl and sheep. Interspersed we get the tale of a Norseman called Rollo who journeys around the Mediterranean, solitary and spying.

While the pace is steady rather than fast, this reflects the times when people travelled slowly, rather like the Brother Cadfael books. Anyone who reads medieval murder mysteries will have fun puzzling out the tangled truths and family trees along with Lassair. As we do not initially know Rollo's purpose his odyssey is less gripping, for all the talk of battle and Turks, but does illustrate the travel that the Norse engaged in and different civilisations on the trade routes. Alys Clare has written several other books in this Norman Aelf Fen series and anyone finding themselves absorbed by the story in BLOOD OF THE SOUTH will be bound to track down some of the other intrigues.

Book Summary

Apprentice healer Lassair encounters a mysterious veiled noblewoman who brings unexpected peril

When Lassair encounters a veiled noblewoman on the quay at Cambridge one morning, set on by an angry mob, she assumes involvement with her will be brief. She has no idea that the woman, alone but for her infant child, brings both mystery and peril. Then a devastating flood hits the fens, and among the wreckage and debris washed up at Aelf Fen is a body; Lassair, in the company of a sheriff's officer, wonders if she is dealing with murder . . .

Meanwhile, in the south, Lassair’s partner Rollo is moving with relief towards the conclusion of his mission for King William in the Holy Land. But then disaster strikes, and, with the mighty forces of an emperor on his heels, abruptly he turns from hunter to hunted. In order to escape alive, he risks help from a stranger, and embarks on a voyage that turns out to be far more dangerous than he could ever have imagined.